401(k) Account shows a -$0.00 cash balance

Question

After a rebalance of securities in my 401(k) account with Empower, my cash balance shows as a negative zero (-$0.00). I have checked and rechecked the transactions, and the shares/total dollars/share prices all match the transactions from the institution, but it still shows as a negative. How can I fix this?

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Quicken Alyssa · Answer

Due to the lack of a response, I went ahead and closed this post.

If you still require assistance, please feel free to start a new post.

Thank you!

jacobs · Answer

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@JeremyASV  He's an idea to try; I think it should work, but I can't be sure and I can't test because I don't have "negative zero" cash.  😉

As @Chris_QPW said above, the "negative zero" cash balance is more likely something like -0.000123, which rounds to display as -0.00. So you should be able to turn that negative zero into a positive zero if you could magically add a fractional cent of cash. What makes this a little tricky is that Quicken Mac won't let you create a regular transaction, like a payment for an amount, with a fractional cent; if you try to type in an amount like $0.001, it will round it to zero on the transaction entry and not save the value as $0.001. But you can create a fractional cent of cash if you sell a tiny amount of stock: Sell .001 share of any stock at a price of 1, and the dollar amount of that transaction will be zero, but Quicken will store the $0.001 fractional cent of cash, even though you can't see it in the transaction register or the Portfolio.

Here's a quick test to demonstrate that Quicken does retain cash balances less than 1¢ and doesn't round them away to zero after every transaction:

In a dummy test account, I entered the first of these two identical Sell transactions, which generated cash of $0.004. After entering the first transaction, the Portfolio showed Cash=0.00. Then I entered the second transaction, generating an additional $0.004 in cash. Now the Portfolio shows Cash=0.01, the rounded value of the actual cash balance of $0.008.

Great — except that now the Portfolio shows I hold negative .008 shares of Microsoft stock. I don't want that, of course, so I need to make that fractional amount of stock disappear — which can be accomplished with an Add Shares transaction. In this case, if I do an Add Shares transaction of .008 share of Microsoft, the cash balance doesn't change, but now the Microsoft holding disappears from the Portfolio.

So I suggest you enter two transactions which look like this:

The Sell transaction should create .004¢ of cash and –.004 shares of Microsoft stock in the Portfolio. The Add Shares transaction adds .004 share of Microsoft, resulting in a total holding of zero — and Microsoft will disappear from the Portfolio after the addition of the Add Shares transaction. End result: an "invisible" $.004 of cash. If your account has some existing small negative value like –$.000123, then the addition of .004¢ should push the balance to a positive, and Cash in the portfolio should display as 0.00 instead of –0.00.

(Note: you can use any security because Sell and Add Shares transactions cancel out any impact on the security; I just used Microsoft here as an example. Use a security you don't currently hold in this account, so you can clearly see the manufactured share balance and then the disappearance of the share balance.)

I think this should work, but you'll have to try it on your file to see. It's easy to try: just enter the two transactions; if it doesn't work as I think it will, you can always delete the two transactions.

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Quicken Alyssa · Answer

Hello again,

Checking in once more before this thread is closed.

Let us know if you still need assistance.

Thank you!